Greetings from Brú na Bóinne

We had absolutely perfect, partly cloudy, nearly 60-degree weather all day on Tuesday as we crossed both Irelands. After breakfast at the Beechlawn Hotel, we drove to the Giant's Ring in Ballynahatty, an enormous circular enclosure with a dolmen at the center. Then we went to two Brigid sites: St. Brigid's Shrine in Faughart, one of the places rumored to be her birthplace, which has the Stations of the Cross along a stream, and St. Brigid's Well at the Hill of Faughart, where Edward Bruce, High King of Ireland until 1318, was killed and buried in the cemetery nearby. We also visited Monasterboice, an ancient Christian church and graveyard, with a huge 10th century round tower and beautifully decorated high crosses. 

Then we went to a place long on my bucket list: Brú na Bóinne, the landscape containing passage tombs older than Stonehenge. We went first to the visitor center, where we ate lunch in the cafe there and saw exhibits on the building and, millennia later, excavation of the tombs, which are accessed via bus after crossing the Boyne. People aren't allowed to enter Knowth, dating at least 3000 BC, which has many decorated stones encircling it, but tour groups can walk on top of the mound, while Newgrange recreates the experience of the winter solstice sun inside the tomb, reaching the famous interior spiral. Our last stop was the Hill of Tara, inauguration site of Ireland's High Kings and another ancient burial mound.